WEBVTT - #26 Beverley and Van 0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:06.120 Is it today? Is it today? 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:07.560 Happy birthday? 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:09.760 It is really humbling for me to have to call 0:00:09.840 --> 0:00:11.360 you up on my own birthday. 0:00:11.640 --> 0:00:12.920 First of all, shut your mouth. 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:14.960 Do you want to wish me a belated happy birthday? 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:17.279 Because my birthday came and went no. 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:17.520 No. 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:20.000 But do you remember I left you. I left you 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:23.720 a really heartfelt belated birthday wish? Oh, it was really 0:00:23.720 --> 0:00:24.799 something I want you. 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:27.240 To know about, something about me and my birthday. Yeah, 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:29.880 my birthday is my birthday. It's not my birth week, 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:30.680 it's not my birth month. 0:00:30.760 --> 0:00:31.520 It's my birthday. 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:33.520 If you don't get me on the day, don't bother. 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:34.360 I don't bother. 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:35.040 Not interested? 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:36.360 Hey, can I ask you? 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:36.519 So? 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:38.240 Since it's my birthday, can I ask you a question? 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:41.240 Do you do any celebrity impressions? 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:45.040 I already regret calling you to wish you a happy birthday? 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:47.320 Not to nitpick, but I'm the one who called you 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:03.440 From Gimblet Media. I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight. 0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:18.280 Today's episode, Beverly and Van Ashley comes to me with 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:21.600 a love story. It begins like something straight out of 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:25.520 the movies. A young woman meets a young man. They 0:01:25.520 --> 0:01:30.000 share a first kiss, They pledge their love, but then 0:01:30.280 --> 0:01:34.200 they marry other people and live out their days apart. 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:39.600 Then they die and the credits roll. Ashley has never 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:42.639 stopped wondering about this couple and why they never receive 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:46.399 their happily ever after ending. And this is because the 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:50.040 young woman in the story was Beverly Colom and she 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:57.320 was Ashley's grandmother. Ashley and her grandmother were close. Ashley 0:01:57.360 --> 0:01:59.120 called her by an affectionate nickname. 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:00.320 So she was a mamma. 0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:07.320 Mamma's her name, mamma. You called her your mammon, Mammon. 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:11.400 We called her our mamma, like with a W at 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:11.640 the end. 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:17.079 In the evenings, Mammon and Ashley watched Jeopardy together, shouting 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:20.840 their guesses at the TV. During commercials, they pressed mute 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:25.600 and quietly read. For Ashley, everything her grandmother did was 0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:27.080 imbued with a certain glamor. 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:30.119 She would roll her hair every evening, and I woke 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:32.080 up really early as a kid, and I would help 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:34.320 her take her pins out of her hair. 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:36.280 She was so cool. 0:02:36.960 --> 0:02:38.519 I just wanted to know everything about. 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:42.760 Her, So they'd spend a lot of time talking about movies, 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:47.880 the family, and boys. For Ashley, this meant sharing stories 0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:51.560 about her different crushes, but for Beverly it only ever 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:53.720 meant talking about one person. 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:57.520 This man named Van. She would call him Van or 0:02:57.600 --> 0:02:58.160 my Van. 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:02.640 Beverly life had been a hard one. Ashley knew her 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:05.480 as a widow, but before then she'd been trapped in 0:03:05.560 --> 0:03:09.320 an unhappy marriage, raising five kids essentially on her own. 0:03:10.120 --> 0:03:13.880 She was a serious woman, not given to sentimentality, but 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:16.760 when she spoke Van's name, her face would light up. 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:20.639 She met Van in New Orleans in the late nineteen thirties. 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:24.840 The two worked at the local newspaper. Van was a salesman, 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:29.440 Beverly and entertainment reporter. But when she talked about those days, 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:32.160 no matter how big the stars and the stories she told, 0:03:32.639 --> 0:03:34.920 it was always Van who took center stage. 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:37.800 And it was clear that she had kind of set 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:40.480 up the stories so that we would ask about him. 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:42.800 Because you know when someone tells you a story and 0:03:42.840 --> 0:03:45.040 you know that they're really into it and they wanted 0:03:45.040 --> 0:03:45.720 to tell it more. 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:49.960 Yeah, she wanted to talk about him. 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:57.240 Yeah. 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:00.320 Sometimes the stories were nothing more than a choice. Dale 0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:05.360 barely an anecdote. Van had blue eyes. Van favored vests, 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:08.200 the kind of non stories one tells when one is 0:04:08.200 --> 0:04:12.040 in love. But Beverly always insisted that she and Van 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:15.440 wererent in love. She said they were just friends. 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:22.680 I mean, so, I like, I think when there's just 0:04:22.800 --> 0:04:26.080 such a there's such a disconnect, right, there's a disconnect 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:29.880 with like how much she mentions him and then how 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:33.320 much she protests that like they're just friends. 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:37.640 Ashley never bought the whole just friend's thing, and she's 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:40.600 always wanted to prove that it was more that Beverly 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:45.280 and Van's relationship was a great, untold romance. Ashley says 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:48.360 that in Beverly's old age, her musings about the past 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:53.120 became increasingly frequent. The family began to record these recollections 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:56.120 so they'd have a record of Beverly's life, and in 0:04:56.160 --> 0:04:59.760 these recordings, the name Van pops up over and over again. 0:05:00.680 --> 0:05:03.159 I asked Ashley to play me the recordings so I 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:06.359 can hear what she heard, the southern accent, to delight 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:10.680 in Beverly's voice, the romantic tenderness as she speaks of 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:16.320 her Van. As the tape begins, I'm amazed by the 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:18.480 voice reaching out from the past. 0:05:19.400 --> 0:05:20.520 It just did. 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:23.200 A book time. 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:28.240 Amazed, that is, and offended as an audio producer by 0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:32.479 how crappy, the sound quality is. Ashley tells me the 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:37.680 family employed the questionable interview Watergate bugging technique of hiding 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:40.960 a dictaphone under a couch cushion. They believe that in 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:44.240 this way, Beverly wouldn't know she was being recorded and 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:48.640 grow self conscious. Ashley then had the tape transcribed, and 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:53.120 then you told your grandmother. You're like, hey, surprise, Yeah, 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:55.560 we were recording you, and we transcribed this and she 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:57.360 wasn't upset. She was touched. 0:05:57.520 --> 0:06:03.359 No, she hated it. Oh that we hadn't spell checked it. 0:06:04.080 --> 0:06:05.760 There were like a lot of typos. 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:08.360 Oh, that's what she took exception to with the fact 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:10.040 that there was bad spelling. It wasn't that you had 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:13.720 actually like wiretapped her personal history or anything. 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:19.000 Yeah. I remember her even fixing them, like circling them 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:19.839 in like red pen. 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:26.479 Because the recording sounds like David Sedaris stuck in a 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:29.479 gym locker. I asked Ashley to read the role of 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:32.440 Beverly from her poorly spellcheck transcriptions. 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:38.320 So when she first introduces him, she says, Van was 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:41.640 a salesman at the time in the display advertising department 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:46.159 of the paper, and we've gradually became friends through encounters 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:49.599 in the elevator halls and his frequent visits to the newsroom. 0:06:49.960 --> 0:06:52.800 So that's how she talked. This was not written language. 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:54.080 No, that's how she talked. 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:58.120 People talked like that back then. A little copy editor 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:01.799 in the mouth, red pan circling jibber, crossing out the jabber. 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:06.520 Van and Beverly developed an office flirtation, and eventually Van 0:07:06.560 --> 0:07:11.240 declared his true feelings about Charlie Wicker, a sportswriter in 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:11.960 the newsroom. 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:15.200 Van stopped by my desk and abruptly asked, do you 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:19.880 date Charlie Wicker? No, why, I replied, to which he explained, 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:21.920 I've been wanting to ask you for a date for 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:24.080 a long time, and I couldn't bring myself to date 0:07:24.120 --> 0:07:25.600 anyone who would go out with Wicker. 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:29.280 With Wicker out of the picker, Beverly and Van began 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:33.000 to date, which led to their first kiss. For Beverly 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:37.000 all of nineteen, it was her first kiss ever. When 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:40.360 Beverly shared the story of the kiss with Ashley, her granddaughter, 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:44.400 took it as proof positive of their romance, but Beverly 0:07:44.480 --> 0:07:48.600 corrected her, claiming that it wasn't a romantic kiss. She 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:51.440 only kissed Van because she was so comfortable with him, 0:07:51.720 --> 0:07:59.160 and she wanted to see what kissing was like. According 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:01.920 to Ashley, Van was something between a dance partner and 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:05.800 a partner in crime. The fred to Beverly's ginger, he 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:10.680 escorted her all over town. He nicknamed her Duck. When 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:13.400 the US entered World War Two, Van enlisted in the 0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:17.320 Air Force and was stationed in North Africa. While overseas, 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:20.120 he wrote to Beverly back home in New Orleans, and 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:24.280 after her death, Ashley discovered the correspondence. Beverly had kept 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:25.760 the letters her whole life. 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:30.239 So June eighteenth, nineteen forty four, Dearest Duck, It's about 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:32.640 five pm here now, and I was thinking how nice 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:35.400 it would be if I were inn for the weekend. 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:37.559 I would be just getting up in order to get 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:40.679 dressed and pick you up for eleven thirty Mass. We 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:42.680 would have a whole wonderful day in front of us. 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:45.040 Of course, the highlight of the whole affair would be 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:48.000 just being with you. You are so close to my thoughts 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:50.760 that it's sometimes difficult for me to realize that there 0:08:50.760 --> 0:08:53.840 are so many thousands of miles separating us. I would 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:56.320 gladly spend one thousand dollars just to see you for 0:08:56.360 --> 0:08:58.720 ten minutes, or even just to talk to you on 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:01.679 the telephone. I'm thinking of you every minute of the 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:04.040 day and night. Love you with all my heart. 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:10.040 Vam Well, that really, I mean, that really sounds like 0:09:10.080 --> 0:09:10.800 a love letter. 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:12.360 That's a love letter. 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:20.760 Yeah, it's a love letter. Ashley pulls out more letters. 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:24.480 I might add, too, Duck that now, almost three years later, 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:27.679 you look even prettier and I thrill as much or 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:29.880 more every time I see. If I were there now, 0:09:30.000 --> 0:09:32.240 i'd know that soon from around the corner it would 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:35.200 come a terribly welcome sight you and a brown or pink. 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:37.520 It'd be too long that I'll be home again and 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:39.960 have a toast for us forever, because I love you 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:42.160 with all my heart as always Van. 0:09:48.520 --> 0:09:51.319 Evidently Ashley's not the only one who didn't buy the 0:09:51.360 --> 0:09:55.480 whole platonic routine. Here she is reading from the transcripts again. 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:58.360 None of my friends or family could understand how two 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:00.920 people could see so much of each other and not 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:02.120 be a hot romance. 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:06.760 Everyone in the newsroom teased them constantly. Van's own mother 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:09.200 was so eager for her son to propose to Beverly 0:10:09.480 --> 0:10:11.880 that she gave him an heirloom diamond ring to present 0:10:11.920 --> 0:10:15.079 to her, but Van never did present the ring to Beverly. 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:19.760 He proposed to someone else. After the engagement was announced. 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:24.040 One of Van's close friends, Dick, approached Beverly conspiratorially. 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:28.080 When Van became engaged to his first wife, Frances, Dick 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:30.840 cornered me one night and told me that all I 0:10:30.920 --> 0:10:34.080 had to do was quote say the word, and the 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:35.439 engagement would be off. 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:40.559 But Beverly never did say the word. Poor Dick, Beverly said, 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:49.760 he never could understand Mayan Van's relationship. Not long afterwards, 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:52.360 Beverly also became engaged, so. 0:10:52.679 --> 0:11:00.679 She got a proposal from from. 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:01.959 Ashley struggles to remember the name, and I'm taking aback 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:06.559 because the name is in fact that of her own grandfather, a. 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:11.880 Man named Llewellyn Brickin. It's funny that that's hard for 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:13.920 me to remember. But he was from like a fancy 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:19.360 family in Alabama. And she said, yes, growing up, I 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:21.840 never heard stories of this guy, of my grandfather, like 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:27.800 from my grandmother. Nothing nothing good, nothing bad, just like 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:29.360 he was a ghost. 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:33.080 The grandkids grew up knowing nothing about their grandfather. But 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:36.320 everything about Van, a man who had no role in 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:40.320 the family. Ashley's older brother, Lloyd, remembers finding it all 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:41.680 very confusing as a kid. 0:11:42.360 --> 0:11:47.400 I remember her talking about Van and being like confused 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:53.440 about whether Van was Gams my grandfather, like as if 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:58.200 Van was Gams at a younger age, his name had 0:11:58.240 --> 0:11:59.280 been Van earlier. 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:03.400 It wasn't until age five that Lloyd discovered he even 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:06.920 had a grandfather. The family never saw Llewellyn, he was 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:10.040 always in his room. On a visit to Beverly's house, 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:13.640 Lloyd and his younger brother spotted a figure shuffling through 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:20.599 a dimly lid hallway, so the like, who is that man? Terrified, 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:22.920 Lloyd tried to tell his mother what he'd seen. 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:26.439 My mother sat down like somberly, and she was like, 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:30.880 that's your grandfather, Huh. Would you like to go and 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:31.719 meet him? 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:35.640 Lloyd did not want to go meet him. Still, their 0:12:35.640 --> 0:12:38.599 mother ushered him and his baby brother into the bedroom 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:42.240 where the man sat dozing in a chair. Lloyd's mother 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:45.280 nudged Lloyd forward until he was almost up against his 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:47.199 grandfather's knees, and she. 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:50.760 Touches him on the shoulder and she says, Daddy and 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:56.120 his eyes open up, and she says, Daddy, I want 0:12:56.160 --> 0:13:02.040 you to meet your grandsons. And he he seems alone, disoriented, 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:05.160 and he looks at us for like for some seconds, 0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:10.880 and he says, when you get older, you need to 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:16.319 go to Argentina. The most beautiful women in the world 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:21.760 are in Argentina. And I swear to you you like 0:13:21.760 --> 0:13:24.080 like just kind of goes back to sleep in the chair, 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:25.040 and that was that. 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:37.240 Ashley has always wondered why her grandmother chose Llewellyn, a 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:41.840 ghost who gave unsolicited travel advice, over Van, the man 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:45.440 she was meant to be with. So I try to find. 0:13:45.240 --> 0:13:47.680 Out, Hello, Jonathan, you're quite prompt. 0:13:48.400 --> 0:13:51.840 This is Lloyd, and Ashley's mom knocks, and being called 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:55.040 prompt in that Southern accent of hers makes me happier 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:58.360 than a dead possum laying in the sunshine. While I 0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:00.959 can't say I've spent much time in the American South, 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:04.520 I have seen a lot of foghorn leghorn cartoons, and 0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:07.520 so I try my best to respond in kind. Just 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:08.600 try to be on time, ma'am. 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:09.640 Just try to be on. 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:13.200 Time, ma'am. I'll say, whatever this is, Marian. 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:17.280 I also phone up Ashley's aunt, Marian, Why do you 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:21.520 think that in the end your mom chose your dad. 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:25.280 Well, you know, when she would tell us, she said 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:29.480 he is the smartest, had the cutest personality, the most fond, 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:33.280 just could wide up a room. You know, who knows 0:14:33.680 --> 0:14:36.640 what makes people really fall in love? 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:41.080 As a kid? I mean, did it seem as though 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:43.280 it was a loving marriage. 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:45.440 At first? 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:50.600 At first? Llewellyn doated on Beverly hiring a staff of 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:54.720 people to look after their home. At first, Llewellyn was charming, 0:14:55.160 --> 0:14:57.680 the kind of guy who never drink at parties so 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:01.160 that he could drive everyone home. At first, it must 0:15:01.200 --> 0:15:03.960 have felt like Beverly was embarking on a wonderful life, 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:06.880 and it must have felt terrible when it didn't last. 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:14.200 My father wasn't happy about being wealthy. He wanted to 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:17.640 be super wealthy, so he did a lot of investing 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:23.000 in a lot of not very safe companies, and his 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:27.440 you know, his wealth disappeared very rapidly, and he wasn't 0:15:27.480 --> 0:15:31.760 able to handle that, and so he became an alcoholic 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:34.640 and stated an alcoholic his whole life. 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:36.880 Llewellyn went from charming to mean. 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:42.720 He was exceedingly violent, toward our mother. Never was violent 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:46.040 toward us, but he would wreck rooms. 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:52.000 Okay, Llewellyn lost everything, and thus so did Beverly. She 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:54.880 went tumbling from a life of luxury to one of struggle, 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:57.760 forced to work two jobs in order to provide for 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:00.720 five kids and a husband who said in a room 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:01.800 and drank all day. 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:05.680 Mother never threw him out. She did not believe in divorce. 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:06.720 You know. 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:11.280 She was a very strong, believing Catholic. 0:16:12.520 --> 0:16:13.560 And she never looked back. 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:17.520 Oh, I don't know. She never would have told us that. 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:20.640 She just said, you make your bed, you lie in it, 0:16:21.400 --> 0:16:24.160 and just made the best of everything. 0:16:27.000 --> 0:16:31.320 But to quote my podcast brother Alex Baldwin, here's the thing. 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:35.960 Through it all, Beverly still had Van. Even though they 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:39.440 married other people and lived hundreds of miles apart. Van 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:43.920 and Beverly remained close. Though neither Knox nor Marian ever 0:16:44.000 --> 0:16:47.520 met Van, they felt his presence all throughout their childhoods. 0:16:48.200 --> 0:16:51.960 Van's phone calls were frequent. Marian remembers how the spiral 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:55.040 cord of the hallway phone would snake into Beverly's bedroom 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:55.800 when he called. 0:16:56.520 --> 0:16:59.640 We knew when Van called not to interrupt her. It 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:03.120 was so light she was back in the good old days, 0:17:03.280 --> 0:17:05.560 like she was on a I'm not saying on a 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:07.159 date with him, but maybe like that. 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:10.520 She normally talked to him at least once a month. 0:17:10.920 --> 0:17:11.600 They would joke. 0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:14.600 They would have conversations for hours if they wanted. 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:17.159 To, over a course of How long was this was 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:17.800 this the case? 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:21.520 Probably forty fifty years? 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:23.240 Oh my goodness, many many years. 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:29.720 Yeah. 0:17:29.960 --> 0:17:33.399 Mother had gone through Francis's cancer and her death and 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:34.320 supported him. 0:17:34.720 --> 0:17:40.160 That was his first wife. Yeah, and after when Van's 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:44.320 wife died and your dad died, Why do you think 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:47.439 Van and your mother didn't marry at that point? 0:17:47.600 --> 0:17:50.600 Oh well, okay, these things did not happen at the 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:51.160 same time. 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:53.159 Okay, my father didn't die. 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:57.119 Till mother was in her sixties. Fan had already remarried. 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:03.360 By the time Llewellyn died. Van had been remarried six years. Beverly, 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:08.680 for her part, never remarried, remaining stubbornly alone. To Ashley, 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:11.240 it seemed the couple that was meant to be had 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:23.600 missed their moment, and after that the timing was never right. 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:28.680 Ashley visited Beverly a few months before she died because 0:18:28.680 --> 0:18:31.720 she knew it always lifted her grandmother's spirits. She asked 0:18:31.760 --> 0:18:32.280 after Van. 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:35.440 She said that she hadn't heard from him in a while, 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:40.159 and I told her that she should call him, and 0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:44.880 she refused. And her explaination to me at the time 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:47.080 was that women don't call men. 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:47.600 Hmmm. 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:51.680 And I thought it was a joke, but she was serious. Yeah, 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:52.640 And she never called him. 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:57.160 Beverly and Van never spoke again, and later that year 0:18:57.520 --> 0:19:01.000 Beverly died. So Ashley is left with the burden of 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:05.119 her grandmother's tale of what never was, and now she 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:07.720 wants to know if somewhere out there there were people 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:10.280 who share that sense of loss over a thing that 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:13.520 never existed. She wants to find out if the same 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:17.760 way Beverly's family had a Van, Van's family had a Beverly. 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:20.080 I just think, like, did they hear about us? Do 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:21.800 you know what I mean? Like, were we as important 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:26.480 it was? Was my grandmother as important in like Van's 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:31.159 stories or not? 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:34.879 What would that? What would that bring? 0:19:38.440 --> 0:19:43.320 I think I think it would mean that that that 0:19:43.320 --> 0:19:47.160 that she meant something, you know, that her life wasn't 0:19:47.160 --> 0:19:52.440 this kind of sad struggle, but that she had had 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:54.840 like a bigger life than the life that I saw 0:19:56.119 --> 0:19:57.679 that she was, like, really loved. 0:20:24.480 --> 0:20:28.480 I get to work researching Van's family tree. Maybe, like Beverly, 0:20:28.640 --> 0:20:31.560 Van had a special relationship with one of his grandkids, 0:20:31.800 --> 0:20:34.280 someone he might have shared his heart with. So I 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:37.000 phone up his grandson, but in the way of romantic 0:20:37.040 --> 0:20:41.359 Beverly stories, he doesn't have much to offer. Next, I 0:20:41.440 --> 0:20:45.359 email his granddaughter, who writes back, my interactions with my 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:49.399 grandfather were sparse and perfunctory. I love and respect him dearly, 0:20:49.840 --> 0:20:52.760 but that's just how it was. I actually have some 0:20:52.840 --> 0:20:55.320 regret about this now that he is gone and I 0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:55.879 am older. 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:02.760 Hello. 0:21:03.440 --> 0:21:04.399 Hi, is this Webby? 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:05.720 Yes? 0:21:05.359 --> 0:21:06.280 Hello? 0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:07.120 Is this Debbie? 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:07.720 Yes? 0:21:08.359 --> 0:21:11.800 I decided to move up the family tree to Van's daughters, 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:14.919 Debbie and Webby. Debbie owns her own store. 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:16.960 I'm in the middle of whale and then d. 0:21:17.800 --> 0:21:20.760 And Webby works in design. Is it web design? 0:21:22.680 --> 0:21:23.680 Interior design? 0:21:24.040 --> 0:21:26.040 Oh? Because I thought it would be fun if you're 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:29.360 because you do web design and your name is well, yeah. 0:21:31.040 --> 0:21:33.600 I want to know if Beverly Colomb was a presence 0:21:33.600 --> 0:21:36.080 in their lives, and so I put the question to 0:21:36.119 --> 0:21:37.879 them with an elegant economy. 0:21:39.840 --> 0:21:44.440 Beverly, Oh, Beverly that he used to date way back then. 0:21:44.760 --> 0:21:49.359 Yeah, yeah, well, I mean, I mean he referred to her. Also, 0:21:49.720 --> 0:21:52.159 he was crazy about Beverly, and I just know that 0:21:52.240 --> 0:21:54.760 it really really liked her. As soon as you hear 0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:57.000 the name, it just brings back, you know, a warmth. 0:22:01.840 --> 0:22:04.760 I'm hoping to find some proof of an abiding romance 0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:09.080 that I can share with Ashley. But Webby and Debbie 0:22:09.080 --> 0:22:12.520 don't have many Beverly anecdotes. So I asked who else 0:22:12.600 --> 0:22:15.200 might be able to illuminate what Van and Beverly meant 0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:15.760 to each other? 0:22:16.960 --> 0:22:22.000 Who is alive that would still remember that they're all gone? 0:22:23.280 --> 0:22:26.040 Webby tells me that if Van were still alive, he'd 0:22:26.040 --> 0:22:29.000 be more than one hundred years old. His brothers, his 0:22:29.119 --> 0:22:32.880 war buddies are all gone. His youngest daughter, who he 0:22:32.920 --> 0:22:36.640 was closest with, died young. I talked to a couple 0:22:36.640 --> 0:22:41.080 of Van's sons in law, no dice, but it occurs 0:22:41.119 --> 0:22:43.879 to me that Van has one last family relation who 0:22:44.000 --> 0:22:47.440 might remember Beverly, someone in fact, who might have been 0:22:47.440 --> 0:22:50.720 in the house huttering around in the background during those 0:22:50.760 --> 0:22:54.359 marathon telephone calls. What about your stepmother? 0:22:56.760 --> 0:22:59.199 Oh, I haven't talked to her since I split up. 0:22:59.240 --> 0:23:02.800 That ended best we don't even talk about the stepmother. 0:23:03.440 --> 0:23:05.280 Oh God, I wish it had been Beverly. 0:23:08.560 --> 0:23:11.080 Van was married to his second wife, Barbara, for twenty 0:23:11.119 --> 0:23:14.960 five years. Towards the end of Van's life, Debbie remembers 0:23:15.000 --> 0:23:17.480 showing up one day to their home in New Orleans. 0:23:18.040 --> 0:23:20.240 I walked in the house and she had him walking 0:23:20.280 --> 0:23:25.359 around with a diaper on with a robe open, while 0:23:25.400 --> 0:23:30.000 she had three other people playing cards, playing bridge. And 0:23:30.040 --> 0:23:32.600 that's it. That's the end, you know, I just started 0:23:32.600 --> 0:23:33.120 taking over. 0:23:34.840 --> 0:23:35.840 I was horrified. 0:23:35.880 --> 0:23:38.200 I mean, I quit my job, everything, I mean, because 0:23:38.240 --> 0:23:41.160 I was one of Anyway. 0:23:44.000 --> 0:23:46.760 Van was showing signs of dementia and his health was 0:23:46.800 --> 0:23:51.600